That distant rumble you're hearing from the Beltway is the sounds of pundits eagerly excavating as they dig up the campaign goal posts established for Hillary Clinton's presidential run and reset them during the middle of the race.

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After months of suggesting her White House push was possibly doomed, that she couldn't connect with voters, pundits are now conceding she will be her party's nominee and that polling data and demographics currently give her a November advantage. But instead of admitting they misread her run (how do you accumulate 13 million primary votes and not connect with people?), some have decided to change the rules -- to move the goal posts midway through the game -- and suggest that even if she wins the presidency, Clinton will have won it the wrong way, and that in some bizarre way her victory won't be legitimate.

Penning a campaign memo to Clinton with the subject line, "Winning Right," Ron Fournier in The Atlantic insisted that winning isn't enough for her (emphasis added):

"Congratulations! You are now the presumptive Democratic nominee. Considering the demographic obstacles piled against Donald J. Trump, you're this close to the presidency. The nation's first woman president. Heir to President Obama's legacy.

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"It's not enough. Is your goal to win the presidency or to win and transform the presidency? Are you a caretaker or a change agent? Do you seize power for the love of power or for higher purposes: to modernize the institutions of politics and governance; to restore the public's faith in Washington; to break the cycle of polarization and solve big problems; to galvanize the youth vote (like Obama) and translate millennials' passion and power into governmental reforms (unlike Obama)?"

According to Fournier, Clinton's victory and her presidency will only matter if she completely transforms American politics. And if she accomplishes that without any help from Republicans, of course.

For context, note that Fournier's column scolded Clinton's campaign for not being "honest and authentic" the way Donald Trump's campaign has been honest and authentic. So that tells you a bit about the writer's worldview.

Some of Fournier's suggestions/demands for Clinton to win and govern the right way? She should "digitize" the "bully pulpit" to get Republican statehouses to stop gerrymandering voting districts, and as president she should change the rules for how the Democratic and Republican parties nominate their candidates.

So no, I doubt the Clinton camp is taking Fournier's offerings seriously. But his heavy-handed demands are worth noting since they offer insight into how parts of the pundit class are already preemptively undermining Clinton's possible win.

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One popular refrain is that the rest of Clinton's run is already tainted because her unfavorable/favorable rating is not good. Trump's net unfavorable rating is worse, but many in the press are lumping the two candidates together and presenting them as a deeply unpopular pair.

"I think is very frustrating is that the two people most disliked by a majority of the country are about to end up running against each other," lamented Matthew Dowd on ABC This Week.

Added Fournier on Meet The Press: "We have two presumptive nominees and most often America says oh, my God. Maybe I don't vote in November."

The theme is constant: Clinton's viewed poorly by voters, therefore she doesn't inspire. But that's not true. A recent Gallup poll found that Clinton supporters were among the most enthusiastic this campaign season, and were even more enthusiastic about her run than supporters of Bernie Sanders were about his.

Meanwhile, over at Politico, Todd Purdum's recent piece, "How Hillary Could Win the Election--and Lose the Country," harped on many of the same points Fournier made in The Atlantic. Yes, Clinton can win, but she's winning the wrong way (emphasis added):

Eric Boehlert is the author of Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush (Free Press, 2006). He worked for five years as a senior writer for Salon.com, where he wrote extensively about media and politics. Prior to that, he worked as a (more...)